How To: How to Treat Tea Colored Pond WaterThere's only one thing worse than green water - and that's tea colored or brown water. Often times, the end fall, beginning of winter brings with it discolored water.

How To: How to Treat Tea Colored Pond Water

How To: How to Treat Tea Colored Pond Water

There's only one thing worse than green water - and that's tea colored or brown water. Often times, the end of fall, beginning of winter brings with it discolored water. This generally occurs because of one of two reasons:

The first being tea-colored water. When leaves fall into your pond and sit, they break down, releasing tannins. For the most part, they stain the water, creating a type of all-natural tea. This is the most common cause of tea colored or brown water.

The second is simply free-floating sediment, which is ultimately making the water appear this color. Fish, water movement from waterfall or wind can easily disrupt this debris.

To determine what's causing the discoloration, grab a glass from your kitchen, dunk it in your pond and fill it with the water. Bring it inside and let it sit for about 24 hours. The next day, take a closer look at the glass. If it's still tea-colored then you have tannin stained water. If you see particulate matter settled at the bottom of the glass then you have sediment.

Once we pinpoint what's causing the discoloration, we can treat accordingly.

First, clean the pond. Because both causes start with an abundance of organics, your first action is to rid the bottom of the pond of that debris. Remove any muck, leaves, etc. Use a pond vacuum, net, or drain the entire pond if necessary.

For the tea-colored water, use activated carbon, which is chemical filtration. The carbon will absorb the colors, leaving behind clear water. You'll add this to a media bag and place in either your skimmer or waterfall water. Anywhere that has a constant flow.

For the sediment issue, add beneficial bacteria. The beneficial bacteria will digest any accumulated organic debris and eliminate the brown water.

01/31/2019 11:47:03 AM: Ice Dams- if you choose to run your pump during the winter, and it's powering a waterfall, it's important to monitor for ice dams. These are ice accumulations that can occur at the base of your waterfall during freezing conditions. So, as the pump runs, water has the opportunity to roll over this ice and ultimately out of the pond. Draining your pond. Which, can cause fish loss and ultimately pump failure.

01/22/2019 10:11:02 AM: Filtration is a key element to mostly every clear and healthy pond. When choosing a filter, it's best to decide based on pond size and fish load. Ponds with heavy fish loads will obviously have more debris, so with those ponds you will want to consider oversizing filtration. Remember, you can never have too much.

01/15/2019 10:25:02 AM: The sounds of a cascading waterfall and birds singing. Not a cloud in the sky. The sun is shining and you're resting by the pond feeding your koi. What could be better than this? How about actually hand feeding them! Follow the few easy steps below and your koi will be eating from the palm of your hand in no time.

01/10/2019 11:02:34 AM: Laguna Protective Pond Netting protects valuable koi and goldfish from predators, plus it keeps leaves and other debris out of the pond - protecting submerged circulating pumps from becoming clogged and reducing overall pond maintenance. The black netting material blends naturally in the water garden and comes complete with ground stakes to secure it in place.